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The
disease of diabetes is not just about a series of blood sugar
numbers. The high blood sugar affects several organs and blood
vessels of the body. For example, unchecked diabetes can cause
blindness, heart disease, stroke and kidney failure. For this
reason, you’ll want to learn all you can about your diabetes and
plan strategies so that the complications can never happen.
Here
are some strategies to keep your diabetes in check:
- Make it a habit to get at least 30 minutes of exercise per day. Exercise, especially aerobic exercise in which you get your heart rate going, has several beneficial effects on diabetes. The act of exercising burns calories and sugar so your blood sugars go down. Lowered blood sugars mean the diabetes has less of an impact on your health. If exercise is something foreign to you, start by doing some walking outside or in a mall if the weather is inclement. Work your way up to more vigorous forms of exercise, especially if you begin to lose weight and exercise comes easier for you.
- See an eye doctor once a year. Diabetes that is not well managed can cause a condition known as diabetic retinopathy. With diabetic retinopathy, the small vessels of the retina in back of the eye rupture and bleed, causing poor vision that tends to be permanent. If diabetic retinopathy is detected early enough, there are things that you and your doctor can do that can reverse the pattern of the disease so as to spare your vision.
- Have regular contact with a nutritionist. A nutritionist can help you keep your diet fresh and can guide you on the proper things to eat while diabetic. You can work together to create a meal plan that has the right amounts of carbohydrates, protein and fats with a calorie count that doesn’t cause weight gain. Your blood sugar numbers will be better overall and you won’t suffer as much of the complications of diabetes.
- Concentrate on losing weight if you are overweight. Being overweight contributes to the worsening of diabetes as well as to other medical conditions. If you are diabetic and overweight, you might try a meal plan that cuts out enough calories to affect a slow, yet significant weight loss. Your bloods sugar numbers will be in a better range and the adverse effects of high blood sugar will be eliminated. Losing weight can be hard but it is truly one of the best ways to normalize your diabetic metabolism.
- Limit your raw sugar intake. There is no reason to fill your body with empty sugar calories as it will only serve to drive up your blood sugar values. Eating sugar can cause spikes in blood sugar so that complications can arise. Steadily flooding the kidneys with glucose because your intake is too high can damage the kidneys to the point of kidney failure.
- Watch your fat intake. Diabetes often goes right along with having high cholesterol and triglyceride counts. These are fats you consume in your diet or are made from high blood sugar that can eventually clog your arteries, causing heart attacks and strokes. By watching your fat intake along with your intake of sugar, you can doubly prevent these complications. There are plenty of low fat alternatives to things like cookies, pastries and even salad oils so that you have other choices of what you are putting into your body. The combination of low fat and low raw sugar intake can drastically influence the kinds of complications of diabetes you get—or maybe never get at all.
- Manage Your Treatment And Be Mindful Of Your Care. With a combination of healthy lifestyle choices, regular blood sugar checks and medical management diabetes can be managed and complications can be avoided. This is a chronic disease, but unlike cancer or other serious illnesses, diabetes can be controlled and as long as you remain vigilant and mindful of all the recommendation to manage blood sugar and make healthy choices in diet and exercise, you can live a long and healthy life.
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